Members and Friends of the Space Age Generation's Journal

By now anyone who would have cared to know is aware that Dick Clark died yesterday. He was 82 which was a relatively long life, especially in the areas that he was most famous for moving in and around: that of music and television.

The thing that fascinated me about him was how he could always mold himself into whatever he needed to be at whatever job he was doing. I studied him in person for tapings of the Pyramid show, which filmed off Broadway at a little TV studio near the Ed Sullivan Theater. Clark would host the program and I was always impressed by how he would know when to ratchet up the tension, to good-naturedly rib a celebrity, focus and calm the contestants as they played, and had fun the whole while.

He was also brilliant at interviewing and that talent was apparent on "American Bandstand." He, very much like Johnny Carson, could chat with anyone, be they kids from the audience ready to "Rate A Record," some fledgling band trying to make it or with the bona fide superstars that he spoke with on the show or at The Golden Globes, one of the two award shows he produced, along with the American Music Awards.

There was always a kind of down-to-earth and homespun sensibility about him. This was a guy you could sit on the back porch and have a Dr. Pepper with, maybe play a game of checkers or listen to a baseball game on the radio. I suspect he would never admit which team he wanted to win!

And then there were all those New Year's Eves. I can remember Guy Lombardo being on the television, which was the same thing as having Lawrence Welk play your party. But then Dick Clark came along to save us! Actual music we liked and wanted to hear! Lombardo quickly faded away once Dick Clark arrived!

Looking at it now, Lombardo's exit from the New Year's scene was a bit more dignified than Dick's, unfortunately. It was painful these past several years to watch one of the most successful voices in television history struggle to count from 10 to zero.

On the other hand, maybe we should have more people like Dick visible on screen, to call attention to these issues, to remind people that everything on television isn't perfection. In that sense, it was good we had those last few visits. Michael J. Fox. Muhammad Ali. The Muscular Dystrophy telethon. The Special Olympics. Sometimes we need reminders how important people are and how fragile they are. Life is rarely as neat as it is depicted on television.

As my little tribute, here's his rarely heard (and borderline propaganda) recording from 45 years ago.... yours to listen to or download, courtesy of our friends at WFMU!

RIP, Dick Clark.

Dick Clark - "An Open Letter to The Older Generation"

I need to examine the lastest release from Madonna, since she's kind of the dregs of the 1980s still recording. Michael and Whitney are gone. Prince has taken a sharp left turn in his musical form. Really the only other performer from the era still doing anything relevant is Weird Al Yankovic!

Madonna's new album, if you somehow have been trapped in a Hunger Games line/theater for the past several months, is called MDNA. And there are some surprising things about it.

( No Borderline Call )

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic Friendship 7 voyage, the first United States resident to orbit the earth.

In celebration of this landmark event in history, NASA presents this neat look back:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/glenn50/

If you have a couple of minutes, it's a fun thing to examine.

Telemarketing. The word conjures up middle aged men in cheap suits and hairpieces, constantly dialing from their cubicles and trying to get you to part with your money for any number of illegitimate reasons! You simply wish these creeps would go away, forever!

I guess I should write a review of "The Muppets," since, like, well, you know, I've actually had the pleasure of being Kermit professionally if only for a day, and I did try my hand at writing a Muppet script several years ago, to no real success. I guess it's not too late to dust it off and try again. But, that's another story for a different day. Right now, there's the one playing in theaters...

( It's time to play the music... unless you haven't seen and don't want to be spoiled )

Continuing through the history of television series, I have to note the episode of one of my all-time favorite programs, “Batman," that gives the highest percentage of WTF.

I have been meaning to start another series on Television for awhile, and this seems like one that will have a very long run. For lack of a better name, I'm titling it "The WTF Episode of..." and I plan to present these on a fairly regular basis, with appropriate background and info about the series generally. It's one particular episode of a series that is just so hard to figure, so unbelievable for some reason or reasons that you just can't understand how it happened.

I wanted to begin with this choice because it is chock full of WTF, but just in case you aren't familiar with the program, here's some background on "Bachelor Father."

Previously, On Television: We gave a gaze towards the competitive nature that was being presented via TV, the Cold War, the racial tensions, the generational differences that had suddenly become fodder for mass media, and how television reacted by creating a lot of diversionary programming designed to make people forget the horrors of the wars in Vietnam and on the streets of nearly every ghetto in the country. This time, we’ll look at the crucial moment when television finally grew up.

( A Televised Tragic Adolescence )

Google is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight with a Google Doodle today:

and it's animated! (just linked the youtube vid for the permanent record)

Previously, on Television: We explored the concept of the “Television Code” and how it helped make the TV environs safer for advertisers. We examined the Mass Marketing of television and the early programs designed to encourage people to buy a set. And we looked at these early programs to examine just how the networks positioned themselves to gain viewers into the 1950s. This time, we’ll exit the Eisenhower years, and head towards a new, immensely larger and crazier world, and beyond.

( The Dawn of the Space Age )

Previously, on Television: We covered the most important facts about television – that it is, as its first and most important role, an advertising delivery service; that the technology of the device itself sometimes overshadowed the actual programming and forced viewers to purchase more and more televisions to keep up with the tech changes and because of the sponsors, TV is not able to properly reflect our society as it must cater to the companies that buy commercial time. Next, we will look at the early part of the mass hysteria that brought the medium into everyone’s lives.

( Keeping It Clean So the Ads Can Be Seen )

I started writing a series of articles about the history of television for another website.

Since I no longer do anything for that site, I am now posting the rest of them where they belong, and that's here.

So, I'll start at the beginning and work my way towards what I was intending to do, which is give a different sort of portrait of TV, and try to make some sense about how the combined history of that medium intertwines with that of our nation and ultimately ourselves.

( ON THE AIR )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev

50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. But the unsung hero of the Soviet Union's triumph was a brilliant scientist who survived Stalin's purges

Robin McKie

A girl presents Gagarin with flowers during his visit to London in July 1961.
Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

It remains the one untarnished triumph of Soviet science. On 12 April 1961, a peasant farmer's son with a winsome smile crammed himself into a capsule eight feet in diameter and was blasted into space on top of a rocket 20 storeys high. One hundred and eight minutes later, after making a single orbit of our world, the young pilot parachuted back to Earth. In doing so, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to journey into space.

The flight of Vostok 1 – whose 50th anniversary will be celebrated next month – was a defining moment of the 20th century and opened up the prospect of interplanetary travel for our species. It also made Gagarin an international star while his mission was hailed as clear proof of the superiority of communist technology. The 27-year-old cosmonaut became a figurehead for the Soviet Union and toured the world. He lunched with the Queen; was kissed by Gina Lollobrigida; and holidayed with the privileged in Crimea.

Gagarin also received more than a million letters from fans across the world, an astonishing outpouring of global admiration – for he was not obvious star material. He was short and slightly built. Yet Gagarin possessed a smile "that lit up the darkness of the cold war", as one writer put it, and had a natural grace that made him the best ambassador that the USSR ever had. Even his flaws seem oddly endearing by modern standards, his worst moment occurring when he gashed his head after leaping from a window to avoid his wife who had discovered a girl in his hotel room.
( Read more... )

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nilajean told me a story years ago, how she had always cried every afternoon as a little girl, because Miss Lois of KTVI's version of Romper Room never, ever, saw little "Nila" in her Magic Mirror at the end of the program. With child's logic,

nilajean felt unloved that the Magic worked for every other boy and girl but not for her. Eventually she grew past the age for Romper Room, but she never forgot the results of her unusual first name.

KTVI tweeted this morning that they were going to have Miss Lois on the morning news for an interview. I made some frantic calls to the station (as their understaffed weekend newsroom producer wouldn't pick up but let the 'phone go to recording and I had to keep re-calling, but after I explained why I was calling, she took our telephone number and said she would try to get it to Miss Lois.

Miss Lois called, bless her heart, and said she still had her Magic Mirror with her and could now see Nila, even though fifty years had passed. Always a kind woman who loved children, she understood how a little girl with an unusual name would feel passed over, and then as adults we had a delightful discussion about how much we all missed the show. It was one of the sweetest conversations I have ever had.

Afterward,

nilajean and I got to explain to our boys, born far too late for Romper Room, about Do Being a Do-Bee and Don't Being a Don't-Bee, the "Bend & Stretch" song, and the non-sectarian prayer Miss Lois and the children always said before their snack time. ("God is Great, God is Good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen.")

I haven't seen

nilajean with this big a smile in years, as the weight of all that remembered pain melted away. Bless you, Miss Lois. We still love you.